Ed had been nervous, approaching the ranch again. He had wondered for one hopeless moment if Season and Sally had made it back to Kansas, but he knew damned well that there were no flights from California, or anywhere else for that matter. He had also wondered, more realistically, if the farm had been looted while he was away, or burned by vengeful neighbours who had seen his Sunday-evening broadcast and assumed that he had somehow been involved in Shearson’s Blight Crisis scam himself; or if Willard and Dyson and Jack Marowitz had decided to abandon the farm and head for the city.

He had stopped at the gates to South Burlington. A large, crudely-scrawled notice-board had been erected by the farm insignia, proclaiming: PRIVATE LAND – TRESPASSERS SHOT. He had driven the Chevy Suburban a short way along the dusty entrance-road, and then stopped, flashing his headlamps and sounding his horn.

Slowly, keeping the wagon covered with a shotgun, Dyson Kane had emerged from behind the nearby fence.

‘Dyson!’ Ed had shouted out. ‘It’s me! Ed! I brought a few friends along with me!’

‘Friends, he calls us,’ Shearson had remarked, with heavy irony. ‘They’re very droll these farmers, aren’t they, as well as mischievous.’

Dyson had taken a few suspicious steps nearer. ‘They really friends?’ he had asked. ‘None of those people are holding a gun on you, are they?’

‘It’s all okay,’ Ed had answered. ‘Look-this is Mrs Della McIntosh. She came around at the weekend.’

Dyson had walked right up to the side of the wagon and taken a look inside. ‘Well, now,’ he had said, reaching across to shake Ed’s hand. ‘And isn’t that Senator Shearson Jones you’ve got in back?’

‘That’s right,’ Ed had told him. ‘I’ll tell you all about it up at the farm. You want a ride?’

‘It’ll have to be later,’ Dyson explained. ‘I’m on guard duty right now. We had two or three pretty nasty bunches of looters around yesterday afternoon. They’re looking for anything they can lay their hands on – particularly livestock. They’re all armed, too, and if things get any worse I reckon they’re going to start killing people.’

‘Okay,’ said Ed. ‘You’ve got something to drink out here? Do you want me to send some sandwiches down?’

‘I could go a couple of BLTs,’ smiled Dyson. ‘Unfortunately, we don’t have any L and we’re all out of Ts. But you can send one of the kids down with a round of B.’

‘You’ve got it,’ Ed had said, and driven the wagon the rest of the way up to the farmhouse, with red dust trailing from the wheels.